Ninety Feet to the Sun: A Sea Novel of World War II

After a Luftwaffe strafing attack in the fall of 1940, coxswain Ben Grant finds himself the senior man on H. M. submarine Scavenger. Ordered to intercept the Germans as they tow a huge floating dock to Norway, Grant manages some repairs on his damaged vessel and with good luck finds and destroys the dock. His luck soon runs out, however, and he must fight Nazi ships, dangerous Norwegian seas, a cowardly engineer and, not least, his own feelings of inadequacy. Scavenger is mortally wounded but Grant and a handful of the crew escape to a small island; later, they are picked up off Scotland by a German destroyer. In a bang-up finish, Grant and his sparse crew turn the tables on the Germans. Except for a few spots of over-writing, Collenette's event-filled tale is consistently interesting. (April 18)